Authoritative and Authoritarian Mothers’ Parenting Goals, … · a global measure of parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative). Self-reports of parental beliefs (parental

Authoritative and AuthoritarianMothers’ Parenting Goals,

Attributions, and Emotions AcrossDifferent Childrearing Contexts

Robert J. Coplan, Paul D. Hastings,Daniel G. Lagacé-Séguin, and Caryn E. Moulton

SYNOPSIS

Objective. The central goal of this study was to explore how childrearing con-texts might moderate relations between parenting styles and mothers’ parentalbeliefs and emotional responses. Design. Participants were 76 mothers of chil-dren (41 boys, 35 girls) ranging in age from 30 to 70 months. Mothers completeda global measure of parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative). Self-reportsof parental beliefs (parental goals, attributions) and emotional responses (an-gry, embarrassed, happy) were assessed in response to hypothetical vignettesdepicting a variety of children’s behaviors (aggression, misbehavior, shyness,prosocial behavior). Results. In situations depicting children’s negative behav-iors, authoritarian mothers were less focused on empathic goals and attributedchild aggression and misbehaviors to less external sources than their more au-thoritative counterparts. Authoritarian mothers were also more likely to re-spond with greater anger and embarrassment across all childrearing scenarios.Conclusions. Results suggest that authoritarian and authoritative mothers dif-fer in their affective response patterns consistently across childrearing contexts,but that more challenging childrearing situations accentuate differences in thecognitive reactions of authoritative versus authoritarian mothers. Implicationsfor understanding how general parenting styles may be translated into specificparental responses are considered.

INTRODUCTION

A vast literature has emerged linking constructs related to parenting to awide array of child outcomes. For example, some researchers have focusedon parenting styles (e.g., Baumrind, 1971; Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Hol-den, 1995; Robinson, Mandleco, Frost Olsen, & Hart, 1995), elucidatingparents’ global attitudes about childrearing and generalizable patterns ofinteracting with their children and managing the family. Other researchers

PARENTING: SCIENCE AND PRACTICE Copyright © 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.January–March 2002 Volume 2 Number 1 Pages 1–26

have studied parental belief systems (e.g., Dix, 1993; Hastings & Coplan,1999; Mills & Rubin, 1990; Sigel, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, & Goodnow, 1992),exploring constructs related to parenting goals and attribution across vari-ous contexts. Still other researchers have been interested in the affectivecomponent of parenting (e.g., Bugental, 1992; Eisenberg, Cumberland, &Spinrad, 1998), investigating parents’ emotional responses related tochildrearing situations.

Parenting styles represent a macro-level construct and are assumed toreflect a parent’s typical responses to childrearing situations. In contrast,parental beliefs and emotional responses are typically seen as more situa-tion-specific, varying as a function of the childrearing context. To date,there is surprisingly little direct empirical evidence to support assumedconceptual associations between parental styles and beliefs or emotions.Moreover, almost no information is available in terms of how relationsamong parenting styles, parental beliefs, and emotional responses mayvary as a function of childrearing context (i.e., different child behaviors).The main purpose of this study was to explore specific hypothesesrelating global ratings of maternal disciplinary styles with more situa-tion-specific parental beliefs and emotions across various hypotheticalchildrearing scenarios.

Parenting Style

A parenting style characterizes a constellation of parenting behaviors,which creates a pervasive interactional climate over a broad range of con-texts and situations (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Mize & Pettit, 1997). Assuch, parenting styles can be conceptualized as representing general pat-terns of childrearing that characterize parents’ typical techniques and re-sponses. Baumrind’s (e.g., 1971, 1978, 1989, 1997) typology of parentingstyles has dominated research in this area for almost 30 years. Based on dif-ferences in terms of the constructs of parental warmth and control, Baum-rind and others (e.g., Maccoby & Martin, 1983) identified multiple par-enting typologies. Of particular interest for this study are the authoritarianand authoritative parenting styles. The authoritarian parenting style in-volves power assertion without warmth, nurturance, or two-way commu-nication. In this respect, a parent who engages in this style is low inwarmth, but high in control. Authoritarian parents attempt to control andevaluate the behaviors and attitudes of their children with an absolute setof standards. Above all, these parents value obedience, respect for author-ity, and preservation of order. Authoritative parents also set firm controlson the behavior of their children and make strong demands for maturity,but are willing to listen to their child’s point of view and even to adjust

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their behavior accordingly. Parents who engage in authoritative parentingexercise control in combination with warmth, nurturance, democracy, andopen parent–child communication. Solicitation of children’s opinions andfeelings as well as explanations and reasons for punishment are commonpractices for the authoritative parent.

An authoritative parenting style is generally considered advantageousto many aspects of child development (Baumrind, 1978; Hart & Newell, inpress; Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991). Results from pastresearch have shown that children of such parents tend to be independent,self-assertive, friendly with peers, and cooperative with parents (Baum-rind, 1971), as well as intellectually and socially successful with a strongmotivation to achieve (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). In contrast, parents whotend to be coercive, harsh, and arbitrarily authoritarian or power assertivein their parenting practices are less likely to be successful than those whoplace substantial emphasis on reasoning in an attempt to be responsive toand understanding of their child’s point of view (Grusec & Goodnow,1994). Moreover, children of authoritarian parents report low self-esteemand spontaneity and varied levels of social withdrawal and antisocial anddelinquent behaviors in childhood and adolescence (e.g., Coie & Dodge,1998; Coopersmith, 1967; Schwartz, Dodge, Petit, & Bates, 1997).

Parenting styles are presumed to be fairly constant across time and con-texts (Holden & Miller, 1999; Smetana, 1994). As such, most researchershave considered these constructs as trait variables, as opposed to statevariables (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994). In terms of empirical assessments,researchers have reported that both childrearing approaches are relativelystable in early childhood (e.g., Roberts et al., 1984) and over longer periodsof time (McNally, Eisenberg, & Harris, 1991). For example, McNally et al.found moderate stability of self-reported parenting styles over an 8-yearperiod from middle childhood (age 7–8 years) to adolescence (age 14–15years). Smetana (1994) argued that because of their global characteriza-tions, “the context of behaviors is not directly relevant to the evaluation ofparenting orientation” (p. 22). Consistent with this position, Darling andSteinberg (1993) suggested that parenting style conveys to the child theparent’s attitude toward the child, rather than the child’s behavior (Dar-ling & Steinberg, 1993).

Many developmentalists have criticized the strict division between au-thoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, however, and have sug-gested that there is considerable fluidity in how so-called “authoritarian”and “authoritative” parents actually behave with their children. Moreover,parenting styles typologies have been criticized because of the difficulty as-sociated with assigning a parent to a single style (Sternberg, 1994). Parentsmay employ different childrearing approaches at different times, under dif-

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 3

ferent circumstances, and with different children (Grusec & Goodnow,1994).Bothauthoritarianandauthoritativeparentsmayalsovary intheir in-terpretations of the salience and meaning of child rearing situations, suchthat differences in their evaluations may be greater or smaller, depending onthe situation in question (Smetana, 1995). Finally, in non-Western, collectiv-ist cultures, parents may engage in behaviors that are consistent with au-thoritarian parenting styles without espousing beliefs or attitudes that aretypical of authoritarian Western parents (Grusec, Rudy, & Martini, 1997). Tounderstand how different parenting styles might be differentially mani-fested across varying contexts, it is necessary to explore the beliefs and emo-tional responses that are evoked in specific contexts and contribute to how aworking model or schema of parenting is enacted.

Parental Belief Systems

Parental beliefs. Parental beliefs represent what parents think about theirchild, childrearing, and themselves as parents. Researchers exploring pa-rental belief systems have sought to understand the characteristics, func-tioning, and sources of parents’ cognitions about childrearing (e.g., Hast-ings & Coplan, 1999; Sigel et al., 1992). Some researchers conceptualizeparental belief systems as incorporating the proximal and contextually ex-perienced beliefs that a parent holds within a given parent–child interac-tion (e.g., Dix, 1992, 1993; Grusec et al., 1997; Hastings & Rubin, 1999;Holden & Edwards, 1989).1 Moreover, Smetana (1994) argued that parentalbeliefs (i.e., parental goals) are more likely to be predictive when they areconsidered as situationally dependent as opposed to trait characteristics.In this regard, Bugental and Johnston (2000) argued that parental beliefsact as guides to differential response patterns in different contexts.

Defined in this manner, parental beliefs are prone to contextual effects,such as the nature of specific childrearing situations (Gretarsson & Gel-fand, 1988; Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Grusec & Kuczynski, 1980). Forexample, results from several studies have indicated that variations in chil-dren’s behaviors seem to elicit different beliefs (e.g., Dix, Ruble, & Zam-barabo, 1989; Grusec et al., 1997; Hastings & Coplan, 1999; Smetana, 1994).Consistent with this perspective, Rubin and colleagues (e.g., Hastings &Rubin, 1999; Rubin & Mills, 1900; Rubin, Mills, & Rose-Krasnor, 1989) de-scribed parental reactive strategies and beliefs in response to descriptionsof different forms of children’s maladaptive behaviors. Thus, different

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1This distinguishes parental beliefs from parental attitudes — thought to be relatively sta-ble over time and invariant across situations — and demonstrated so far to be of limited use inparenting research (Holden & Edwards, 1989).

child behaviors can be conceptualized as representing differentchildrearing contexts. In this study, we attempted to expand on the extantliterature by exploring maternal reactive beliefs and emotional responsesin response to hypothetical vignettes describing both child maladaptive(i.e., aggressive, disobedient, shy) and adaptive (i.e., prosocial) behaviors.

There has been surprisingly little empirical research directly linkingparenting style with aspects of parental belief systems. For this study, the fo-cus was on the relations between general parenting styles and contextuallyspecific parental beliefs (parenting goals and causal attributions for chil-dren’s behaviors) and emotions (anger, embarrassment, and happiness).

Parenting goals. Parenting goals are the outcomes that parents have inmind and hope to achieve during specific interactions with their children(Dix, 1992). Researchers have theorized that the goals that parents bring toa parent–child interaction serve to organize behavior and psychologicalfunctioning (Goodnow & Collins, 1990; Pervin, 1989). Of particular interestfor our research was the broad differentiation between parent-centeredand empathic goals. A parent who is concerned with achieving parent-cen-tered goals is primarily interested in meeting his or her own needs (Dix,1992). These needs include establishing authority and obtaining child com-pliance and respect (Hastings & Grusec, 1998). In contrast, Dix (1992) andGrusec et al. (1997) used the term empathic goals to describe concern withaddressing child needs and fostering a positive parent–child relationship.A parent pursuing empathic goals seeks to reach mutually acceptable out-comes, and build love, trust, and family ties (Hastings & Grusec, 1998).

Parents appear to prioritize different goals in response to differentchildrearing situations (e.g., Dix, Ruble, Grusec, & Nixon, 1986; Hastings &Coplan, 1999; Hastings & Grusec, 1998; Hastings & Rubin, 1999; Mills & Ru-bin, 1990; Smetana, 1994). We expected to replicate these findings withmothers being more likely to endorse parent-centered goals in scenarios de-picting aggression and misbehavior, and empathic goals in response toprosocial behaviors. Aggression and misbehavior are child behaviors thatextend beyond the range of normally acceptable actions, and necessitatethataparent imposestructureandrestrictionsonthechild(Grusec&Lytton,1988). Even for an authoritative parent who is invested in providing ratio-nales for rules, it would be necessary to stop the child’s aversive actions tomake it more likely that the child would attend to the subsequent message.Thus, a parent-centered goal of immediately stopping the child’s behaviorwould be elicited by contexts involving aggression or misbehavior.

Conceptually, the more frequent use of parent-centered goals is consis-tent with an authoritarian parenting style. In contrast, authoritative par-enting might be expected to be related to the use of empathic goals. There

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 5

is surprisingly little direct empirical support for these hypotheses. Par-ent-centered goals have been linked to more power-assertive parenting be-havior, whereas empathic goals are reported to be associated with greateruse of parental negotiation (e.g., Hastings & Grusec, 1998; Hull, 1943;Mazur, 1990; Pervin, 1989; Rubin et al., 1989). As well, Hastings and Rubin(1999) found that mothers who reported more authoritarian parentingstyles were more likely, 2 years later, to express concern for attaining par-ent-centered goals in response to children’s aggressive behavior.

Causal attributions. Parents’ causal attributions are the explanations thatparents provide to account for their children’s behaviors or characteristics(Dix, 1993; Miller, 1995; Mills & Rubin, 1990; Scott-Little & Holloway, 1994).Attributions can be characterized along a number of related dimensions(Dix, 1993), which can be aggregated to reflect the degree to which parentsmake internal versus external attributions (Dix et al., 1989; Hastings & Ru-bin, 1999; Miller, 1995). Internal attributions reflect the constellation of per-ceptions that a child’s misbehaviors are dispositional, intentional, stable,and typical. Alternatively, external attributions include the perceptions ofchildren’s misbehaviors as provoked, accidental, transitory, and unique.

It has been suggested that parents are likely to have positive attributionbiases, or to be “developmental optimists” (Goodnow, Knight, & Cash-more, 1986), with respect to their explanations for their own children’s be-havior. Indeed, results from a few studies have shown that more internalattributions are made regarding children’s positive behaviors (e.g., beinghelpful) than negative behaviors (e.g., fighting with peers), whereas theconverse is true for parents’ external attributions (Dix et al., 1986; Gretars-son & Gelfand, 1988). Similarly, mothers tend to make external attributionsto explain young children’s shyness (Mills & Rubin, 1990), although theirattributions are more internal for older children’s shy behaviors (Rubin &Mills, 1992).

Different parenting styles also have been linked to differences in par-ents’ attributions for children’s behaviors, and in particular, their mis-behaviors. Internal attributions have been associated with angry affect andpower assertive behavior (Dix et al., 1989; Miller, 1995; Slep & O’Leary,1998). Similarly, more authoritarian mothers have been found to makemore internal attributions for children’s aggression and disobedience (Dix& Reinhold, 1991; Hastings & Rubin, 1999). However, less is known aboutthe attributions that authoritarian and authoritative mothers might makefor children’s positive or shy behaviors. It can be speculated that authori-tarian mothers might display a less pronounced developmental optimismthan their authoritarian counterparts.

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Parental emotional responses. Increasingly, there has been recognition ofthe importance of the affective components of parenting by researchers(see Bugental & Johnston, 2000; Eisenberg et al., 1998, for recent reviews).Bugental (1992) argued that parental emotions can act as both cause andconsequence of cognitive processes. For this study, we defined parentingemotions as the affective experience that accompanies parent–child interac-tions, or the feelings that a parent has during specific childrearing situa-tions. Not surprisingly, a child displaying positive versus negative behav-iors will evoke different parental emotional responses (Grusec, Dix, &Mills, 1989; Rubin & Mills, 1990).

According to Dix (1993), parental negative mood precipitates the inter-pretation of children’s negative behaviors as intentional, dispositional,and blameworthy. In turn, these biased interpretations increase the proba-bility that parents will respond with power-assertive strategies. Similarlinks between parental anger and the use of high-powered strategies in re-sponse to antisocial behavior have been reported by Grusec et al. (1989), aswell as Mills and Rubin (1990). Thus, authoritarian parents would be ex-pected to respond to maladaptive child behaviors with negative emotions(i.e., anger, embarrassment).

Linking Parenting Styles With Beliefsand Emotions Across Contexts

On first glance, it may be difficult to conceptualize how parentingstyles, representing global descriptions of parental behaviors over manydifferent contexts, might be systematically related to parental reactive be-liefs and emotional responses, representing context-specific responses todifferent childrearing settings. However, understanding how beliefs andemotional responses vary within and across different parenting styles mayhelp to account for why parenting styles sometimes appear to be mani-fested differentially across different contexts.

Different parenting styles might be more likely to evoke particular be-liefs and emotional responses during specific childrearing contexts. In thissame regard, Darling and Steinberg (1993) suggested that parenting stylesare most indicative of parents’ behaviors toward children during situa-tions involving the potential for discipline. Extrapolating from these no-tions, it may be that these childrearing contexts serve to exaggerate differ-ences in beliefs systems and emotional responses that would be expectedbetween parents espousing different parenting styles. When children be-have in aversive or undesired ways, it behooves parents to intervene with-out delay to address their children’s transgressions. The demands of theseencounters may challenge or stress parents, causing them to react in more

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 7

automatic ways that are rooted in their dominant parenting styles. Whenchildren’s behaviors are of an ambiguous (i.e., shy) or desirable (i.e.,prosocial) nature, parents may be less challenged and more capable of re-sponding in a deliberative manner.

Thus, it was hypothesized that differences in the reactive beliefs andemotional responses of authoritarian and authoritative mothers wouldbe most evident during childrearing contexts involving child aggres-sion and misbehaviors, and least apparent in response to children’s pos-itive behaviors. Variations in parents’ responses to shy behaviors areless well documented (although see Rubin & Mills, 1992). As such, thehypotheses explored in this childrearing scenario were predominantlyexploratory in nature. In general, one could expect there to be only mod-erate differences between the reactions of authoritarian and authorita-tive mothers to children’s shyness, compared to the differences in theirreactions to clear transgressions.

This Study

To summarize, the aim of this study was to explore the effects of contextand parenting style on mothers’ parental beliefs and emotional responsesacross a variety of childrearing situations. A global measure of parentingstyles (authoritarian, authoritative) was obtained, whereas parental beliefs(parenting goals, attributions) and emotional responses (anger, embarrass-ment, happiness) were assessed in response to hypothetical vignettes de-picting children’s aggression, shyness, misbehavior, and prosocial behav-ior. As compared to their more authoritative counterparts, authoritarianmothers were expected to demonstrate (1) greater espousal of parent-centered goals and less espousal of empathic goals, (2) a decreased ten-dency to attribute their children’s misbehaviors to external causes, and (3)more negative emotional responses to aversive child behaviors. In ad-dition, it was speculated that differences between the beliefs and emo-tional responses of authoritative and authoritarian mothers would be mostpronounced in scenarios regarding misbehavior and aggression, becausethese more challenging child behaviors would elicit the more dominantand accessible response tendencies that comprise parenting styles.

METHODS

Participants

The participants in this study were 76 mothers and their preschool-agedchildren (41 boys, 35 girls), ranging in age from 30 to 70 months (M = 47.80,

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SD = 9.95) at the start of testing. Parents were recruited by sending infor-mation letters home with their child from preschool. The families residedin a medium-sized city in Southwestern Ontario, were primarily EuropeanCanadian (88%), and generally had two parents living in the home (89%).Specific information regarding parental socioeconomic status was notavailable; however, the sample was drawn from predominantly mid-dle-class neighborhoods.

Measures

Parental beliefs. To assess parental beliefs (goals and attributions) andemotional responses across different childrearing contexts, mothers com-pleted the Child Behavior Vignettes (Hastings & Grusec, 1998; Mills & Ru-bin, 1990). Hastings and colleagues (Hastings & Coplan, 1999; Hastings &Grusec, 1998; Hastings & Rubin, 1999) demonstrated the factor structure,reliability, and convergent validity (i.e., relations between parental beliefsand parental behaviors) of this measure. Each mother is asked to read a se-ries of vignettes instructing her to imagine that it was her child behaving ina prosocial, aggressive, shy, or disobedient manner (the texts of the vi-gnettes are presented in the Appendix). Following Hastings and Coplan(1999), responses to the private and public disobedience situations (whichwere highly correlated) were averaged to create aggregate variables repre-senting responses to child misbehaviors.

After each vignette, mothers rated how important each of five possibleparenting goals would be for them in that situation on a scale ranging from1 (not at all) to 5 (very). These included two parent-centered goals (“I wouldwant my child to behave properly, right away”; “I would want my child tounderstand that I expect him/her to behave properly”) and three empathicor relationship-centered goals (“I would want my child to feel good, or to behappy”; “I would want my child to know that I love him/her, and he/shecan love and trust me”; “I would want my child and I both to feel goodabout this situation”). The mean correlation of the two parent-centeredgoals across the vignettes was r = .50 (ranging from rs = .42 to = .66, all ps <.05), and the mean coefficient alpha for the three empathetic goals acrossthe vignettes was α = .76 (range from .68 to .81). Therefore, separate sum-mary variables representing parent-centered and empathic goals were cre-ated for each of the four childrearing contexts. The summary variableswere divided by the associated number of items so that scores would be re-flective of the original 5-point scale.

Mothers’ attributions for the behaviors described in the variouschildrearing scenarios were also assessed on 5-point scales. Mothers ratedthe extent to which the behavior depicted in each vignette was stable (a

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 9

stage that will pass to will keep acting this way), intentional (did not mean to dothis to did this on purpose), typical (never acts this way to just like how my childbehaves), and caused by dispositional factors (due to the situation to due to mychild’s personality). For each scenario, a summary variable was createdwhere high scores represented external attributions (stage, unintentional,atypical, and due to situational factors) and low scores reflected internalattributions (stable, intentional, typical, and due to dispositional factors).Alpha coefficients for the attribution summary scores ranged from α = .71to .83. As previously, this summary variable was divided by the associatednumber of items so that scores would reflect the original 5-point scale.

Finally, mothers provided ratings of emotional responses to the differ-ent childrearing scenarios. For each scenario, mothers rated from 1 (not atall) to 5 (very strong) how strongly she would feel “angry,” “happy,” and“embarrassed” in response to the behaviors described in each vignette.Emotions in each scenario were assessed by a single item. As such, find-ings for these variables should be interpreted with some caution.

Parenting style. Global parenting style was assessed by having motherscomplete the Parenting Practices Questionnaire (PPQ; Robinson et al.,1995). The PPQ consists of 62 items rated on a 5-point scale ranging from1 (never) to 5 (always). Of particular interest for this study were the sub-scales related to authoritarian and authoritative parenting. The authorita-tive scale contains 27 items related to warmth/involvement (e.g., “givescomfort and understanding when child is upset,” “responsive to child’sfeelings or needs”), reasoning/induction (e.g., “emphasizes the reasonsfor rules”), democratic participation (e.g., “allows child to give input intofamily rules”), and good natured/easy going (e.g., “shows patience withchild”). The authoritarian scale has 20 items related to verbal hostility (e.g.,“yells or shouts when child misbehaves”), corporal punishment (e.g. “usesphysical punishment as a way of disciplining child”), nonreasoning/puni-tive strategies (e.g., “uses threats of punishment with little or no justifica-tion”) and directiveness (e.g., “demands that child does things”). The PPQhas been found to have a reliable factor structure for the items that repre-sent each subscale (authoritative, α = .91 and authoritarian, α = .86; Robin-son et al., 1995). In our sample, alpha coefficients were α = .82 for authorita-tive and α = .77 for authoritarian. In terms of convergent validity, Hart andcolleagues (Hart, Nelson, Robinson, Olsen, & McNeilly-Choque, 1998;Hart, Yang, Nelson, Jin, Bazarskaya, & Nelson, 1998) demonstrated linksbetween parenting styles assessed using the PPQ and a variety of chil-dren’s social behaviors in the United States, China, and Russia.

Based on scores on the authoritative and authoritarian subscales, twogroups of mothers were created. Mothers who scored in the top 33% on the

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authoritative scale and in the bottom 66% of the authoritarian scale wereclassified as authoritative (n = 20). Mothers who scored in the top 33% onthe authoritarian scale and in the bottom 66% of the authoritative scalewere classified as authoritarian (n = 21). The cutoffs employed in creatingthese groups were intended to identify mothers who primarily espousedauthoritative versus authoritarian parenting styles.

RESULTS

To begin, a series of correlations was computed between child age and allof the measures related to parenting styles, parental goals, attributions,and emotional responses. No significant correlations emerged. As such,age was not controlled for in subsequent analyses.

Contextual Variations in Maternal Beliefsand Emotional Responses

The purpose of these analyses was to explore how maternal beliefs andemotional responses varied as a function of childrearing Context (pro-social, shy, aggressive, misbehavior). To accomplish this goal, a series of re-peated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) was computed with theentire sample (n = 76). Some missing data points resulted in slight reduc-tions in sample size for certain analyses. ANOVAS were run initially in-cluding child gender as an additional independent variable. Results in-dicated no significant effects of gender; the main effect of gender forparent-centered goals approached significance, F(1, 67) = 3.17, p < .09. Be-cause no significant interactions were indicated between Context and Gen-der for maternal goals, attributions, or emotional responses, results arepresented without the inclusion of gender as an independent variable.

Goals. The first set of analyses explored the within-subjects effect ofchildrearing Context on maternal Goals. A 4 × 2 repeated measureANOVA was conducted with Context (prosocial, shyness, misbehavior,aggression) and Goals (parent-centered, empathetic) both serving as with-in-subjects factors. Results indicated significant main effects of Context,F(3, 195) = 31.66, p < .001, and Goal, F(1, 65) = 65.20, p < .001. However,these main effects were superseded by a significant Context × Goal interac-tion, F(3, 195) = 83.10, p < .001. To explore the interaction, separate repeatedmeasures ANOVAS were re-computed for parent-centered and empathicgoals. Results indicated significant main effects of Context for both em-pathic goals, F(3, 201) = 46.76, p < .001, and parent-centered goals, F(3, 204)

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 11

= 73.79, p < .001. Relevant means and standard deviations are displayed inTable 1. Results from post hoc Tukey honestly significant difference tests(employing the MSerror term from the repeated measures ANOVA) indi-cated that as expected, empathic goals were endorsed most strongly in theprosocial and shyness scenarios, whereas parent-centered goals were mostendorsed during the aggression and misbehavior scenarios.

Attributions. A one-way ANOVA was used to consider the within-sub-jects effect of childrearing Context on the summary score of maternal attri-butions. Results indicated a significant effect of Context, F(3, 216) = 33.61, p< .001. Follow-up comparisons indicated that parents attributed children’saggressive and shy behaviors to more external causes than prosocial be-havior (see Table 1). Children’s misbehaviors were seen as less externallycaused than aggressive and shy behaviors, but more ascribable to externalcauses than prosocial behavior.

Emotions. The final set of analyses explored the within-subjects effect ofContext on maternal emotional responses. A 4 × 3 repeated measuresANOVA was conducted with Context and Emotion (angry, embarrassed,happy) serving as within-subjects factors. Results indicated significantmain effects of Context, F(3, 207) = 93.47, p < .001, and Emotion, F(2, 138) =33.54, p < .001. However, these main effects were again superseded by asignificant Context × Emotion interaction, F(6, 414) = 375.10, p < .001. To ex-

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TABLE 1Goals, Attributions, and Emotions Across Four Different Contexts

of Child Behavior

Child Behavior Context

Aggression Misbehavior Shyness Prosocial

Parental Response M SD M SD M SD M SD

GoalsParent-centered 3.96a 0.57 3.73a 0.58 2.39b 1.12 3.49c 0.88Empathic 3.66a 0.84 3.81a 0.72 4.30b 0.56 4.44b 0.43

AttributionsAttributions 3.32a 0.56 3.09b 0.43 3.32a 0.59 2.62c 0.41

EmotionsAngry 2.96a 0.96 2.66b 0.78 1.12c 0.40 1.04c 0.26Embarrassed 2.66a 1.14 1.87b 0.62 1.18c 0.45 1.00 0.00Happy 1.19a 0.52 1.23a 0.38 1.51b 0.67 4.46c 0.67

Notes: Means in each row not sharing a common subscript differ significantly at the .05level. Scores could range from 1 to 5.

plore the interaction, three separate repeated measures ANOVAS wereconducted for maternal angry, embarrassed, and happy emotional re-sponses. Results indicated a significant main effect of Context for angry,F(3, 216) = 194.48, p < .001, and happy responses, F(3, 213) = 530.15, p < .001.A significant effect of Context was also found for embarrassed responses,F(2, 146) = 86.24, p < .001, although responses in the prosocial scenario werenot included because no mothers rated any embarrassment in response tothis behavior. Results are summarized in Table 1. Mothers responded withthe most anger and embarrassment to the aggression episode, followed bythe misbehavior vignettes. Mothers felt most happy in response to theprosocial scenario, followed by the shy vignette.

Styles, Beliefs, and Emotional ResponsesAcross Childrearing Contexts

The primary aim of this study was to explore the effects of parentingstyle and childrearing context (and their interaction) on mothers’ paren-tal beliefs and emotional responses. To accomplish this goal, a series ofmixed repeated-measures ANOVAS was computed with the subsampleof mothers who had been previously classified as either authoritative (n= 20) or authoritarian (n = 21). Although these analyses also includedtests of the main effects of context, these findings are not reported, asthey are described in the previous section as they pertain to the entiresample. As before, some missing data points resulted in slight reductionsin sample size for certain analyses. A summary of all F values is pre-sented in Table 2.

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 13

TABLE 2Summary of Analyses of Variance Assessing Effects of Style

and Context × Style Interactions for Maternal Goals, Attributions,and Emotional Responses

Dependent Variable Main Effect Of Style Context × Style Interaction

GoalsParent-centered F(1, 35) < 1 F(3, 105) < 1Empathic F(1, 36) = 11.50*** F(3, 108) = 2.71*

AttributionsAttributions F(1, 38) < 1 F(3, 114) = 4.90**

EmotionsAngry F(1, 39) = 10.09** F(3, 117) < 1Embarrassed F(1, 38) = 4.08* F(2, 76) < 1Happy F(1, 37) < 1 F(3, 111) < 1

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Goals. The first set of analyses consisted of two Context by Style (4 × 2)mixed-design ANOVA examining mothers’ goals in the various vignettes.Context (prosocial, aggressive, misbehavior, shy) served as a within-sub-jects factor and Style (authoritative, authoritarian) as a between-subjectsfactor. Separate ANOVAS were conducted for parent-centered and em-pathic goals. For empathic goals, results indicated a significant main effectof Style (with authoritative mothers being more likely to endorse empathicgoals) and a significant Context × Style interaction. Relevant means for theinteraction are displayed in Table 3. Results from follow-up simple effectsanalyses indicated that authoritative mothers endorsed the use of em-pathic goals significantly more than their authoritarian counterparts in theaggression, t(36) = 3.05, p < .01, and misbehavior scenario, t(37) = 3.70, p <.01, and this difference approached significance in the shyness scenarios,t(38) = 1.98, p < .06. The groups did not differ in terms of empathic goals inthe prosocial scenario. For parent-centered goals, no significant effects ofStyle were observed.

Attributions. The next analysis was a Context by Style (4 × 2) mixed-de-sign ANOVA examining mothers’ attributions in the various vignettes. Re-sults indicated a significant Context × Style interaction. Relevant means forthe interaction are displayed in Table 3. Results from follow up analyses in-dicated that during the prosocial scenario, authoritarian mothers attrib-uted children’s behavior to significantly more external causes than author-itative mothers, t(38) = 3.58, p < .001. In contrast, in the aggression scenario,authoritative mothers tended to attribute children’s behavior to more ex-ternal causes than authoritarian mothers, t(39) = 1.79, p < .09.

14 COPLAN ET AL.

TABLE 3Authoritative and Authoritarian Mothers’ Goals and Attributions

in Four Different Contexts of Child Behavior

Child Behavior Context

Aggression Misbehavior Shyness Prosocial

Parental Response M SD M SD M SD M SD

Empathic goalsAuthoritative 4.20 .76 4.16 .54 4.44 .60 4.47 .48Authoritarian 3.46 .72 3.42 .67 4.06 .61 4.29 .52

AttributionsAuthoritative 3.58 .69 3.17 .53 3.30 .58 2.41 .37Authoritarian 3.25 .52 3.01 .44 3.48 .52 2.88 .45

Note: Scores could range from 1 to 5.

Emotions. The final set of analyses consisted of three Context × Style (4 ×2) mixed-design ANOVAS examining mothers’ emotional responses in thevarious vignettes. For angry responses, results indicated only a significantmain effect of Style. Across scenarios, authoritarian mothers were signifi-cantly more likely to respond with anger (M = 2.17, SD = .36), than their au-thoritative counterparts (M = 1.80, SD = .39). A similar pattern emerged forembarrassed responses, with a significant main effect of Style. Across sce-narios, authoritarian mothers were significantly more likely to respondwith embarrassment (M = 1.76, SD = .44) than their authoritative counter-parts (M = 1.50, SD = .34). For happy responses, no significant effects in-volving Style were observed.

DISCUSSION

The primary goal of this study was to explore variability acrosschildrearing contexts in the relations between parenting styles and moth-ers’ parental beliefs and emotional responses. For mothers’ beliefs, differ-ences between the parenting goals and causal attributions of authoritativeand authoritarian mothers were found to be most pronounced in responseto scenarios related to negative child behaviors. For maternal emotional re-sponses, independent main effects of context and parenting style were evi-dent. Results concerning the contextual variations in mother’s parental be-liefs and emotional responses are discussed briefly to begin with, followedby a more detailed interpretation of the interactive effects between par-enting style and childrearing context.

It should be noted that the nature of the data collected in this study doesnot allow us to draw conclusions regarding the direction of effect and thecausal nature of the relation between parenting styles and beliefs. More-over, a clear limitation of the current data set is that assessments ofparenting style, parental beliefs, and parental emotional responses were allself-report measures. It is likely that associations between variables havebeen heightened because of shared-method variance. As such, our find-ings should be interpreted with caution.

Contextual Variations in Maternal Beliefsand Emotional Responses

Results concerning contextual variations in maternal beliefs and emo-tional responses replicated and extended previous research findings inthis area. The present findings reinforced the previously reported notionthat social climates dominated by transgressions (i.e., aggressive acts and

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 15

misbehaviors) are more likely to direct parental beliefs toward “strict”parental responses (e.g., Hastings & Coplan, 1999; Hastings & Rubin,1999; Nucci & Smetana, 1996; Smetana, 1994) than less aversive childbehaviors (i.e., shyness and prosocial behavior). Thus, mothers reportedbeing more likely to feel upset (i.e., angry, embarrassed) and to focus onbehavior modification (i.e., parent-centered goals such as obtaining com-pliance) when children were described as being more disruptive. In addi-tion, our findings provide some of the first explicit evidence for the“other side of the coin,” namely that positive child behaviors are morelikely to evoke a focus on empathic goals (i.e., building trust and love)and positive maternal affect.

However, the pattern of differences across contexts also highlighted thefact that mothers’ affective and cognitive reactions to children’s behaviorswere not uniformly negative or positive. Results concerning attributionsreplicated previous research suggesting that, overall, parents are “devel-opmental optimists” (Dix et al., 1986; Goodnow et al., 1986; Gretarsson &Gelfand, 1988). Our findings reflect a pattern of explanations for behaviorsin which children were “credited” for their positive behavior and heldleast responsible for socially incompetent actions. It is interesting to notethat, despite attributing aggressive behavior to more external factors,mothers were also more likely to focus on parent-centered goals and re-spond with anger during this scenario. Conversely, in the shyness sce-nario, mothers attributed child behavior to external causes to the same de-gree as for aggression, but reported a greater focus on empathic goals, lesspriority to parent-centered goals, and less anger and embarrassment.These findings are consistent with Rubin and Mills (1992), who reportedthat child aggression elicited more parental anger and punitively control-ling behavior, as compared to social withdrawal.

The findings for the aggression scenario were somewhat contradictorywith the positive associations among internal attributions, angry affect,and power assertive behavior that have been reported by some authors(Dix et al., 1989; Miller, 1995). Typically, this constellation of parental reac-tions is considered undesirable and likely to contribute to more conflictedparent–child interactions. However, it has also been argued that, at times,it is appropriate for parents to be moderately upset and focused on compli-ance in conjunction with socializing desirable outcomes (Grusec & Lytton,1988). That is, a modest increase of parental negative affect may be neces-sary for obtaining children’s attention when they have misbehaved, to en-sure that children will attend to the parental socialization message. Giventhis perspective, the tendency to attribute young children’s aggression tomore external sources may protect mothers’ belief that they actually areable to influence and improve their children’s behavior. If aggression wasviewed as dispositionally caused, intentional, and stable, parents would

16 COPLAN ET AL.

have little hope of being able to intervene effectively in order to steer theirchildren toward more desirable paths of development (Mills & Rubin,1992). However, this may not hold true beyond early childhood if negativechild behaviors persist. There is some indication of decreasing maternaloptimism in response to consistent, undesired child characteristics (Hast-ings & Hersh, 1999; Mash & Johnston, 1983; Rubin & Mills, 1992).

Parenting Styles and Variationsin Beliefs Across Childrearing Contexts

Compared to their more authoritative counterparts, mothers who es-poused a more authoritarian parenting style had a very different per-spective on their children’s behaviors. Authoritarian mothers did notdemonstrate the “developmental optimism” in their attributions that char-acterized other mothers; in fact, their tendency to see positive child behav-iors as externally caused, and negative child behaviors as more internallycaused, could lead one to describe them as“developmental pessimists.” Aswell, they emphasized the attainment of empathic goals less strongly, par-ticularly in response to less desirable child behaviors. Finally, authoritar-ian mothers reported that they would experience more negative emotionsacross all childrearing contexts.

Dix and colleagues (1989, p. 1389) suggested that authoritarian parentingcan be conceptualized as an information processing schema that

Makes constructs of competence and blame highly accessible, promotes areadiness to process information in terms of the schema, sensitizes parents toschema-consistent information, or promotes the tendency for negative childbehavior to serve as a retrieval cue for schema-consistent information inmemory.

Aversive child behaviors that contribute to more challenging or stress-ful childrearing situations may be more likely to activate a more “au-tomatic” authoritarian schema, and thus evoke the specific parentalcognitions associated with authoritarianism. Child behaviors that are de-sirable or less disruptive do not challenge a parent’s ability to cope, andtherefore do not activate this schema (see also Bugental, 1992).

Thus, it can be speculated that authoritative and authoritarian motherspossess different parenting schemas, and the extent to which eithergroup’s schema is activated depends on the stress or challenge of thechildrearing situation. When maximally activated, these schemas will con-tribute toward maximal differences in parental responses. Alternatively, itis also possible that all parents have multiple parenting schemas, and eachspecific childrearing context activates a different parenting schema. In this

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 17

regard, authoritative and authoritarian mothers may share relatively moresimilar schemas for easy-to-manage contexts, but may hold more discrep-ant schemas for handling difficult contexts. Future research is required tofurther explore these possibilities.

We found that authoritarian mothers attributed negative child behav-iors to more internal causes and were less focused on empathy-relatedgoals (i.e., emphasizing the child’s needs or promoting the quality of theparent–child relationship) during these same scenarios. Previous researchhas shown that internal attributions for misbehaviors are associated withmore punitive parental responses (Dix et al., 1989; Miller, 1995), and thatmaintaining a focus on empathic goals decreases the likelihood that par-ents will resort to power assertion to resolve disagreements with their chil-dren (Hastings & Grusec, 1998). In effect, the authoritarian mothers in thisstudy evidenced a pattern of cognitive reactivity that was most consistentwith, or likely to contribute to, highly controlling and punitive parental be-havior when they were trying to deal with the most difficult childrearingdemands. In this regard, results from this study provided empirical sup-port for the suggestion that parenting styles are most reflective of parents’behaviors toward children during situations involving the potential fordiscipline (Bugental, 1992; Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Phrased more gen-erally, the features of a given childrearing situation moderate the associa-tions between a global parenting style and the specific manifestations ofthat style in that situation.

Although authoritarian and authoritative mothers differed in their rela-tive endorsements of empathic goals, they did not differ in their concernfor attaining parent-centered goals. This is consistent with the conceptual-ization of both authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles as involv-ing high motivations to exercise control over children, but differing interms of warmth and responsiveness (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). The par-ent-centered goals assessed in this study were primarily concerned withobtaining immediate or lasting obedience, goals that are conceptually re-lated to parental control and empirically predictive of directive behavior(Hastings & Grusec, 1998). Conversely, the empathic goals could be seen asreflecting a desire to maintain warmth, responsiveness, and a focus on thechild’s needs. Again, childrearing context was seen playing a moderatingrole in terms of calling forth the authoritative schema. The greater empha-sis on empathic goals evidenced by authoritative mothers was manifestedparticularly during situations involving negative child behaviors.

It can be speculated from these findings that authoritative parents rec-ognize that instances of children’s negative behaviors also provide op-portunities for building and strengthening the parent–child relationship.Thus, when a child has misbehaved, authoritative parents are focused on

18 COPLAN ET AL.

setting firm limits for undesirable behaviors (i.e., obtaining child obedi-ence), but are also aware of the importance of meeting the child’s needsand maintaining the quality of their relationship with their child. This dualfocus on both control and fostering the parent–child relationship, in con-cert with the tendency of authoritative mothers to experience only mild tomoderate affective arousal in the face of children’s transgressions, likelycontributes to the difference between appropriately firm parenting andinappropriately harsh parenting. Thus, an authoritative parenting styleseems to be more conducive to an interaction climate marked by the desireto maintain close dyadic relationships and to meet the needs of the child,even in the face of behavioral transgressions.

Conversely, one could characterize authoritarian mothers as moresingular, or less flexible, in their reactions to children’s transgressions.These mothers see such situations as calling for only discipline and con-trol. Presumably then, authoritarian mothers might have access to a nar-rower range of behavioral options to deal with their children’s aggres-sion and misbehavior; specifically, they may resort to a limited numberof harsher techniques.

Parenting Styles and Consistencyin Emotions Across Childrearing Contexts

Although childrearing context moderated the links between parentingstyle and mothers’ parental beliefs, context did not appear to moderate therelations between style and maternal affect. Across childrearing scenarios,authoritarian mothers reported that they would respond with more angerand embarrassment, compared to authoritative mothers. This provides ad-ditional support for previous reports that authoritarian parents are moreupset, angry, and disapproving in response to child misbehaviors (Dix etal., 1989). Mothers with authoritarian styles value obedience, respect forauthority, and socially appropriate behavior from their children (Grusec &Goodnow, 1994). Behaviors that compromise these values (i.e., aggressionand defiance) are likely to cause anger, because they suggest the parent isfailing to achieve desired outcomes, and embarrassment, because the par-ent may believe that others will interpret the child’s aversive behaviors asindications that the parent has failed to do her job well (i.e., to rear an obe-dient and respectful child).

From this perspective, the primary focus of the mother is not on what thesituation or the behavior means for her child; nor is the situation informingher about emotional or developmental needs of her child that might need tobe addressed. Rather, the mother’s own skills, self-esteem, and social statusare paramount, and are in danger of being compromised. Thus, embarrass-

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 19

mentmaybemore likely topromoteeffortsonthepartof themother to“saveface” or protect her own interests (i.e., by putting an immediate stop to herchild’s aversive actions). This would help to demonstrate that indeed shedoes have control of the situation and of her child. In this regard, embarrass-ment could function as an affective trigger that activates the strictly control-ling schema of authoritarian mothers, and would be a continued reflectionof authoritarian mothers’ more parent-centered focus.

However, it was somewhat surprising to note that authoritarian moth-ers responded with more anger and embarrassment than authoritativemothers when children’s behavior was not disruptive (social withdrawal),even in the scenario depicting children behaving in a prosocial manner.Although perhaps shy behaviors could be interpreted as deviating fromnormal expectations, and thus could contravene an authoritarian parent’sexpectations, one would expect helpfulness and consideration for others tobe child behaviors that authoritarian and authoritative parents alikewould hold as desirable.

The consistency with which authoritarian mothers reported more nega-tive affect than authoritative mothers could be interpreted as evidence thatan authoritarian parenting style functions as a lens through which all chil-dren’s behaviors are perceived and evaluated. In this case, the “default”emotional response appears to be negative, regardless of child behavior.This is also consistent with the typological distinction between authoritari-anism and authoritativeness; the latter is characterized as reflecting morewarmth and affection, and less anger and rejection, than the former (Baum-rind, 1989; Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Consistent and Variable:Integrating Styles, Beliefs, and Emotions

It is very intriguing that mothers with a given parenting style, be it au-thoritative or authoritarian, showed variations in their reported goals andattributions across childrearing contexts while maintaining a consistentstate of affective arousal. These results could be seen as paralleling thelarger body of research on parenting styles and behaviors that show par-ents can be highly variable in their responses in different childrearing situ-ations, and yet have a general tendency to maintain a given style over time.Whereas the correlational and contemporaneous nature of the current dataset requires that we must be cautious with our interpretations, one couldspeculate that our findings have implications for unraveling the compli-cated associations among style, emotion, belief, and behavior.

To the extent that a given parenting style is a global and stable trait fora parent, it may be that specific affective biases underlie the consistency

20 COPLAN ET AL.

with which a style is evident or manifested. As such, predominant emo-tions may set the general tone or overall “flavor” of the relationship be-tween a mother and child. Specific childrearing interactions then con-tribute to how that background character actually will be enacted, atleast partially by the extent to which the details of the interactions acti-vate cognitive schemas and lead mothers to focus on attaining certainparenting goals or attributing children’s behaviors to internal or externalcauses. Faced with circumstances that are not challenging, mothers’ cop-ing skills are not taxed and their schemas are not called into play as di-rectly. Thus, differences between authoritarian and authoritative mothersare minimized with regard to their cognitive reactions and the behaviorsthose promote. Under more stressful and difficult childrearing demands,however, parenting schemas are activated and mothers focus on goalsand make attributions that are consistent with their parenting style, re-sulting in more divergent parental behaviors. Still, across these specificcontexts and whether authoritarian and authoritative mothers are behav-ing similarly or differently, differences in the affective quality of theirchildrearing interactions may be maintained. The relative lack of warmthand predominance of negative affect may be the consistent features thatchildren of authoritarian mothers come to recognize as characteristic oftheir caregivers, and that they incorporate into their own working mod-els of family relationships.

As a final note, the results from this study provide some preliminary in-sights that may give cause for optimism to practitioners who work withparents2. Our findings suggest that the cognitions of authoritarian mothersdo vary to a certain degree across different childrearing contexts. As com-pared to scenarios depicting child aggression and misbehaviors, authori-tarian mothers more strongly endorsed empathic goals in situations re-lated to child shyness and prosocial behaviors. It may be possible toexpand these more positive responses to include a wider range ofchildrearing contexts.

Future research should continue to explore other factors that may influ-ence relations among parenting styles, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.For example, child characteristics may play an important role in the devel-opment of parental schemas. With an especially difficult child, a parent ismore likely to be thrust into challenging childrearing situations more fre-quently. It is possible that repeated activation could make their responseschema more automatic or powerful, even allowing it to generalize toother contexts as well. Thus, an authoritarian parent of a very difficult

PARENTING STYLES, BELIEFS, AND EMOTIONS 21

2Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this application of our results.

child would be more likely to react especially strongly, and the harshnessof her responses would increase with time and over multiple interactions.

AFFILIATIONS AND ADDRESSES

Robert J. Coplan, Department of Psychology, Carleton University, 1125Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA, K1S 5B6. E-mail:[email protected]. Paul D. Hastings is at Concordia University;Daniel G. Lagacé-Séguin, Mount Saint Vincent University, and Caryn E.Moulton, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Support was provided to author Coplan by an SSHRC GR-6 internalgrant from Carleton University, and to author Lagacé-Séguin by anOntario Graduate Scholarship. We appreciate the assistance of AliceRushing in the data collection process, and thank the mothers andpreschools who took part in this investigation. Finally, we are extremelygrateful to Marc Bornstein and three anonymous reviewers for their pa-tience and “beyond the call of duty” assistance during the review pro-cess. Their insights made significant contributions toward the prepara-tion of this article for publication.

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APPENDIX A

Text of Hypothetical Scenarios Describedin the Child Behavior Vignettes

Story 1: Prosocial Behavior

Your child is out front of your home, playing with a few other children.You are watching them from one of your windows. They are having fun,playing a game like “tag,” and your child seems to be one of the leaders.One of the other children trips over something, and starts crying. Yourchild goes to the crying child, helps him/her to sit up, and sits togetherwith the other child until he/she stops crying. Your child has done thiskind of thing before.

Story 2: Aggression

One afternoon, you go to pick up your child from his/her day care cen-ter or preschool. When you get there, your child is in the playground withsome other children. One of the other children has a toy your child wants,and you see your child grab the toy and push the other child down. Youhave seen your child do this a few times before.

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Story 3: Shyness

One morning, you have dropped your child off at his/her daycare cen-ter or preschool. After you say good-bye, you decide to stay and watch thechildren for a little while, and find a spot where you can see your child, buthe/she doesn’t know you’re watching. You see your child standing againstthe wall, watching some of the other children playing with a fun toy. Yourchild looks interested, but stays against the wall and keeps his/her chindown. You have seen your child act like this at other times.

Story 4: Misbehavior (Public)

You and your child are in the local grocery store. Your child asks for avery sugary cereal. You tell him/her it’s not very good for him/her. Then,your child sees some stuffed animals and says he/she wants one. You tellhim/her that he/she has toys at home, and you can’t buy another one to-day. Then, your child grabs a candy bar, and when you try to put it on theshelf, your child screams, “I want it!” People turn and look.

Story 5: Misbehavior (Private)

One day, you and your child are at home and you are expecting somefriends to drop by soon. You look in the front room of your home, and yourchild’s toys are all over the floor. Your child is watching TV. You ask yourchild to pick up his/her toys, and your child says, “Later, when this showis over.” You ask your child to pick his/her toys up now, and your childsays, “You’re not being fair.”

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